Lady felt a little foolish as she wound the flimsy scarf around her neck, but she wasn't sure what else to do. Sure, it was way too warm for that sort of accessory, but it was either fashion, or she could let everyone see the mauling her neck had sustained last night. The latter wasn't an option, and since she had planned to go on a job with the gang today, she had to cover up the best way she could. Trish might be cool and just tease her a little, but if any of them found out who was the cause… well, she didn't want to deal with it.
The huntress packed up all the extra gear she would need into a duffel bag and let herself out of her apartment. She felt on edge as she locked up and headed for the elevator, like everyone could SEE what she was hiding. Vergil was going to suffer, and - oh shit, what if he was there today? Lady took a deep breath as she stepped into the elevator and tried to calm herself down; it was fine, everything was fine. It was just supposed to be her, Trish, and Dante, no sign of the troublemaker himself… hopefully. She threw an awkward smile at the elderly woman who entered the elevator with her and jammed on the button for the lobby, eager to get out of the confined space. This day was already giving her a bad feeling.
Lady all but bolted out of the apartment complex the second the elevator doors opened. She hopped on her bike, pausing only long enough to snap on her helmet and adjust her bag, before taking off for the shop. She had to calm down, but the anxiety she was usually so good at hiding was bubbling back up again. Lady wasn't ashamed exactly… she was a grown woman. But the whole situation was beyond what she felt up to explaining, and she just didn't feel like dealing with it. A drunken hook-up was one thing, and it wouldn't be the first time, but she didn't really want to broadcast it either.
The drive to the shop was short, thankfully, and Lady breathed a sigh of relief as she parked the bike. She was making herself sick over this, if the light-headedness she'd been experiencing during the drive had been anything to go by. She also felt a weird sort of energy thrumming through her as she approached the shop, though she chalked it up to nervousness about being found out, especially since she was covering what was essentially a hickey with a scarf like a damned teenager.
Lady gave a courtesy knock on the shop's front door, though she entered without waiting for an answer as usual - that had only backfired once when Dante had been prancing around doing who-knows-what without any clothes on… talk about awkward. A shout from the kitchen had her heading that way, and the huntress found Trish and Dante carb-loading before the hunt. She reached out and snagged a piece of bacon from Dante's plate, and sat down with a heavy sigh. Lady felt like she had run a marathon, though she flushed a little red when she remembered why.
"Cute scarf…" Trish teased, figuring out the reason why Lady was wearing it, though thankfully she didn't seem to know the identity of the one who had kept Lady awake most of the night. Dante was oblivious to the whole thing, too distracted with his mouthful of pancakes to even pay them any mind. Lady just flipped her friend off and poured herself a glass of orange juice, hoping to wake up a little before they headed out - she didn't need to get maimed because she was unable to concentrate… the sex wasn't that good, or so she told herself.
The longer the three of them sat at the table, the worse Lady felt. She could feel the sweat starting to bead around her hairline, and was she panting a little? Sure, the weather was a little warm for the scarf, but it was made of pretty flimsy material and it wasn't like she was bundled up for the arctic or anything. Lady felt dehydrated too, downing a second glass of orange juice with a heavy gulp. Was she getting sick?
"Hey, uh… you don't look so hot. You feeling' okay?" Dante asked, nudging Lady with his foot. The action caused her to snap back to attention from where she'd been spacing out for the last few seconds, and she shook her head.
"I'm fine… just a little dizzy. I guess I overdid it last night," Lady murmured, scrubbing her face with both of her hands. What the fuck was wrong with her?
"Yeeeeah… no, sweetie. You look like shit," Trish chided her as she reached over to feel Lady's forehead. "You should go lay down, and take this thing off, jacket too," the blonde urged as she carefully tugged on the scarf.
"Trish, no!" Lady hissed, trying to jerk away, but her reflexes weren't what they normally would be, and the fabric fluttered gently to the table. "...Fuck," she blurted out, trying to slap a hand over the bite. Great, now she was sick and embarrassed.
An awkward silence settled over the table for a few seconds as everyone digested what had just happened. Lady felt her face flush deeply, and despite her desire to get up and high-tail it out of there, she couldn't seem to move. The wide-eyed stares of her companions were setting her on edge though, and she finally hissed in annoyance at them.
"It's nothing! Stop staring, damn it…" Lady growled. She moved to get up, but the vertigo from earlier hit her again and she almost fell out of the chair, only managing to stay upright because Trish grabbed her arm.
"...Lady. What happened? Who did this to you?!" Dante demanded as he leapt from his seat. Trish was faster though, and moved to crouch beside the huntress, gently tipping her head to the side to examine to wound.
"Who did what? It's nothing!" Lady insisted, squirming as she tried to push Trish away. "Ugh get off, it's just a flesh wound." Really, this was why she didn't want them to see it. Sure, it looked bad, but it was just a stupid bite mark from a stupid, ugly, idiotic, sexy, worthless, piece-of-shit demon, and this shit was exactly why she didn't deal with them like this!
"Are you kidding me?!" Dante snapped, moving closer to argue with her some more. "It's not nothing, it's a damned mating mark!" he practically shouted. "Did this happen last night? You need to tell us now, this is serious!" the devil insisted as he gripped her by the shoulders.
Lady could only stare blankly at Dante, totally confused by what he was talking about. Mating… mark? Huh?
"...I ...don't know what you're talking about…" she drawled, shaking her head a little, both in confusion, and in an effort to clear the fuzziness away. Ugh, why did she feel so shitty so suddenly?
"Lady… sweetie…" Trish began, trying to be the calmer of the pair while Dante was practically steaming from the ears. "Someone marked you. This bite, it's not normal. We need to kill whoever did this to you or you're going to feel worse," she explained calmly. "So you need to tell us what happened. Did something attack you on the way home?"
Lady continued to blink slowly, unsure if she was hearing correctly. They wanted to kill Vergil? Sure, she did as well, but why were they so mad at him over a drunken bang? Lady knew she wasn't thinking clearly, but she also could tell Trish wasn't telling her something. She couldn't tell them who it was though, she'd rather die.
"I don't… no, I wasn't…" What was she supposed to say? Lady might have been a little disoriented, but she didn't think, "Oh, yeah, I invited your twin brother over to rock my world, Dante. So this isn't whatever you think it is, it's just embarrassing." She was still lucid enough to know that there was no chance in hell she was telling anyone what went down.
"I'm fine, really," Lady laughed nervously and lightly shoved Trish away from her. "It's not a 'mating mark', or whatever you think," the huntress insisted as she stood up, wobbling only a little. "I just had a little too much to drink, that's all. I'm probably still a little drunk, I'm fine."
Lady took a step and wobbled again, and Dante reached out to grab her before she could slump into the wall. Yeah, she was just drunk, not sick, not 'marked', or whatever the hell everyone was talking about. Vergil wasn't stupid enough to do that, and besides, it barely even hurt when he bit her, so she would know if he did something else to her, right? She'd read enough sleazy romance novels to know that she should have felt something big… well, besides the obvious.
"Who are you protecting?!" Dante demanded, his sharp tone one that Lady honestly couldn't really recall hearing before. Even Trish was giving her a weird look, like she couldn't tell whether to be concerned or disappointed.
"I'm not… please, just let it go, it was nothing rea-" Lady cut herself off as the man of the hour came strolling into the kitchen shirtless with only a pair of loose, dark blue pajama pants on.
Whether he was just oblivious to the situation, or ignoring all the morning excitement was unclear as Vergil quietly bypassed the group and headed straight to the fridge. Lady felt herself scowl a little as he passed by them without so much as a 'good morning' and fetched himself a water bottle out of the fridge. She must have had less of an 'annoyed' look though and more of an 'mmm mmm' look on her face though, because Trish's hand immediately shot to her mouth to stifle a giggle.
"Oh…" the blonde huntress choked out, suddenly looking a lot more entertained and a lot less-concerned. Lady didn't think she liked that at all.
Dante took longer to pick up on what was happening, though after several seconds of glancing back and forth between his brother and Lady with enough force to make anyone's neck hurt, he let out an inhuman growl. For his part, Vergil still seemed completely oblivious to the entire situation as he slurped from the water bottle he'd pulled from the fridge.
"YOU!" Dante snarled and pointed an accusing finger at his brother. Lady just wanted to melt into the floor and disappear.
Vergil finally turned around, acknowledging the group with little more than a bored expression as he sipped his water. Lady scowled a little more when he didn't spare her much of a glance at all, though maybe she should have expected it.
"Me?" Vergil finally replied, his tone the epitome of unbothered as he took another sip. He was doing a pretty good job of keeping a straight face in Lady's opinion.
"You fucking asshole! I let you stay here and give your worthless ass a chance, and you do this shit? How could you?! I'm going to blast your ass straight back to Hell!" Dante roared and grabbed Ebony from the table top.
Vergil finally looked over, only just now seeming to notice that Lady was there. He blinked, and then his eyes widened a fraction as if something suddenly clicked in his head. Vergil instantly teleported out of the kitchen, the water bottle left behind to spill all over the floor.
"Get back here so I can kill you!" Dante shouted and launched himself out of the kitchen to chase after his brother. Lady could only stare in the direction they'd vanished in, completely confused by what had just happened.
"...Well, that went well," Trish sighed as she helped Lady up. "Come on, let's lay you down so I can go break them up before someone dies. Pretty sure Dante thinks that Vergil ambushed you or something," she explained as she helped Lady out of the kitchen and to the couch.
"That's not… it wasn't like that," Lady sighed as she flopped down. "I was drunk, but he didn't…" she protested, only to be waved off by Trish.
"Oh, I'm sure. I can't say I blame you, when he advertises it as much as he does," the blonde snickered softly. "Just stay here, you can tell me all the details after I separate these two toddlers," she winked and strutted away.
Lady sighed and gave a nod as she relaxed into the couch. She should have just stayed in bed today. The increasing amount of gunshots in the distance didn't even bother her as she closed her eyes and tried to forget the entire morning. It was too early for this shit.
A/N: I normally wouldn't make Vergil run... but it was too funny to resist, lol.